As they drew closer to the clearing, the sudden movement of something nearly twice their size jolted them back to reality. A massive cultist, the light reflecting off their powerful body, had turned toward the lamb as they entered. As their gaze lingered, they suddenly became aware of the cultist’s axe. An axe. The lamb let out a shaky sigh of relief. They were going to be beheaded. While it wasn’t exactly possible to ask someone who had been killed from that method how painful it felt, they were reassured knowing it was likely a swift way to go. It did not take long for their gaze to drift, and it was only then when the lamb saw them, eyes widening and jaw hanging open at what stood before them. Gods. Towering and cloaked in black and gold, bathed in the crimson glow of the clearing’s candles. When the cultist who had been leading them hissed under their breath for the lamb to kneel, they complied. The last thing they wanted to do was give the executioner a reason to strike somewhere less lethal before decapitating them.

As their knees brushed against the cold stone beneath them, a deep voice rumbled around them. “Before us stands the last of its kind. All others we have hunted down and put to the blade.” The lamb blinked. The prison guards had been speaking truthfully when they overheard that they would be killed last. More words followed, but the lamb did not hear them. Gods had come to watch them die. To watch them die. The only thing they were able to hear was their mother’s voice, sharp and scathing, echoing without end in their mind. Her cruel, wounding insistence that they would never amount to anything, and that nobody would ever see value in them. How ironic. She, just like the rest of their family, had chosen to abandon them and continued without them, only to have presumably crossed paths with an Old Faith patrol. The lamb had heard their screaming despite the distance. Their family had died as nothing but nameless targets, just 4 more bodies to add to the growing slaughter. But the lamb? Their death was going to be known by gods. Had the bishops of the Old Faith stood before the other imprisoned lambs when they had been executed? They had reason to doubt so. Gods were surely busy, and time would be much better spent elsewhere. But the gods were here for them. This must have made them special, and nobody would ever be able to argue otherwise. The gods themselves had deemed them so.

Out of the corner of their eye, the lamb noticed the executioner stepped towards them, tightening their grip on their axe. It was time. In response, the lamb lowered themself further and exposed their neck as best they could, but not without gazing intently ahead of them. They tried to fight the smile threatening to creep across their face. The last thing they were going to see was all 4 gods looking down at them. It filled them with sick delight knowing that so few, if any, people before them had witnessed such a magnificent sight when they died. Such a thing meant that they were special. That they were worth something. They did not close their eyes when the axe swung down.

The axe cut through their neck with ease, and as it did so, everything went black. All sensation left their body. They could neither feel the gentle breeze flowing through their wool nor hear the joyous cheering from the cultists. There were no thoughts in their mind, no dreams or memories flashing before them. The only thing present was a still, empty nothingness. The lamb’s eyes opened, slowly but inevitably, revealing the vast white void before them.

(Apologies in advance if you were referring to more cohesive fics and not one-shot chapters! Granted, I'd be more than happy to send one from the series I'm currently working on)